1990

Quickies

State Theatre Company

Space, June 1990

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The first thing to say about Quickies is that they are a welcome addition to the State Theatre Company’s card. Combining the formula for the 1986 Shorts season- recent works performed by the State and Magpie ensembles, directed by a variety of guests – with State’s long-standing practice of offering public readings of plays by SA dramatists, the result is a double season of works by local writers directed by the best of the younger directors from around town.

It is to be expected that results will be variable. It is the hardest thing in the world to write a good play and some of the works in this six-pack don’t really pass muster. Nevertheless, State has, once again, put plenty of resources into the enterprise – including the talents of designer Kathryn Sproul, lighting designer Keith Tucker and MD, Ian McDonald.

Described as a melting pot, Quickies has a disparate range of works- although two plays, one in each season, cover very similar territory. Fading Flowers by Pauline Harris and   Marion Hoenig’s  Happyrest both deal with old ladies in nursing homes. The formula is two parts sentiment to one part brittle wit. In each play Daphne Grey and Barbara West are cast as a sort of odd couple -one grumps while the other makes the best of things. Both plays deal with the notion of the happy death with influences from “quality” British TV (Crossroads ? Angels ?) and the recent stage hit, A Month of Sundays. Kim Hanna directs Fading Flowers with less assurance than Glen McGillivray displays with Happyrest despite having the stronger text to work with.

Douglas Muecke’s  Brunelleschi’s Revenge is a lightly erudite tall story of Renaissance tomfoolery. It opens wittily but the complications get less interesting as it proceeds and there is a sense that director, Tim Maddock, fearing things are going to fall apart, encourages leads Richard Piper and Bob Hornery to drum up as much business as they can. As arriviste Grissi Maneto Piper gives us a lively amount of Gavin Richards slapstick and the bemused Hornery as Brunelleschi probably would have been looking at his wristwatch if it wasn’t anachronistic to wear one.

Promising, but insubstantial in both writing and presentation, also describes Caroline Mignone’s Buckle My Shoe, directed somewhat archly by David Carlin. Overdressed in Kate Greenaway decor it is a black little tale of nursery guignol. Mary-Anne Pitman does well as the little Lizzie Borden in question so does Claire Jones as her long-suffering sister but overall the treatment of material is too coy to work convincingly.

The third work in each season proves to be the most rewarding. Mij Tanith’s Blind Circumstance directed by Cath McKinnon explores a woman’s relationship with a group of orphans in Saigon. The consequences of commitment and separation are brought to explosive crisis when Julien, a boy promised for adoption and then rejected, comes to Australia to confront the mother he didn’t get. . Syd Brisbane does well as Julien and Kate Roberts and Bill McClusky as the parents. Tanith incorporates some brave attempts at a kind of dream narrative. The ending is unsatisfactorily cryptic but it is an engaging piece of theatre.

The highpoint of the season is undoubtedly Karin Mainwaring’s Long Time…No See, firmly directed by Angela Chaplin with outstanding performances from Carmel McGlone, Bill McClusky, Claire Jones, Emma Salter and Syd Brisbane. A mix of absurdist comedy and Wake in Fright expressionism, Long Time …No See is like an outback Endgame. The writing is terse and troubling, the performances, particularly McGlone’s, chillingly memorable.  Moving from the bush grotesque of Stretch of the Imagination to a harshly drawn account of sexual politics, Long Time …No See is the best thing you’ll see in a long time.

“Quickly Noted” The Adelaide Review, No.78, July, 1990, pp.15-6.